


The poet and his books

by Pearlislove



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Emotional Roller Coaster, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied Relationships, Lots of Angst, Song: Poet by Bastille, Songfic, and lots of fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 06:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10270403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearlislove/pseuds/Pearlislove
Summary: The Doctor write what he remembers, and he remebers because he fears forgetting.Or: The story of all the books 'John Smith' published, and all the people he lost.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by 'The Poet' by Bastille, a sogn fic about The Doctors thoughts and feeling thrpughout the classic series and the new series. Focuse on his feelings concerning his companions and his fear of forgetting.
> 
> Note: I do not know shit about classic companions. Randomly aquired knowledge and wikipedia has been my guideces while working with this story.

_Obsession it takes control_

_Obsession it eats me whole_

_I can't say the words out loud_

_So  I wrote you down_

 

It’s an obsession of The Doctors. Not just a quirk, a little itch like so many other things, but an all consuming obsession fueled by the fear of losing his memory, of forgetting all those who used to mean the world to him. He can’t, he tells himself, and he won’t allow it.

 

So he write them down. He writes down all they said and did, and all he never said and never did to and with them, all the happiness and all the regret, all the adventurous and all the quiet moments in between. All that his obsession won’t let him forget.

 

_Now you'll live through the ages_

_I can feel your pulse in the pages_

 

His first and forever most beloved companion turn into a hole book, all on her own. Many other companions would come to share books with one another, usually per regeneration, of which he soon finds himself burning through too many, but Susan, Susan gets a book of her own. Barbara and Ian is there, too, in the background, but he never give them much space. Later, he wished he did, but at the time he did not. _Susan Rose_ , he names his first book, a title meant to honor his beloved Arkytior, the dearest of children. His chosen name as writer is _John Smith,_ a bland, generic name that will not attract attention, though he hopes the book will.

 

Not because he appreciated humans or was willing to share what he had written, but because this was Susan’s book, and she deserved to be remembered in the human culture that she oh so loved.

 

Maybe, he thinks one day, just maybe, she’d find a copy of _Susan Rose_ in a book crate somewhere one day? And maybe, just because, she’d buy it. If nothing else them because the oddly appropriate title humorous her. She’d sit in her house with her husband and her children and read of little Susan Rose traveling with her grandfather, remembering herself when he took her to Rome and Paris, when he bought her eclairs and fezzes, everything she wished for if she just pleaded enough. She would laugh as the comical side-characters of Barbara and Ian that they meet on their journey subconsciously pine for one another under the pretense of being friends and frown when the grandfather was being just a little too harsh, finally weeping at the ending.

 

Maybe, she would realise, that this was his gift to her, his way of showing that he had not yet abandoned her as much as she thought.

 

_I have written you down_

_Now you will live forever_

_And all the world will read you_

 

After Susan, Ian and Barbara there’s a blur of colors, names and places, all rushing by at crippling speed. Vicki, Steven, Katarina, Sara, Dodo, Polly and Ben. He writes down small slivers of who they were is shivering hand writing, his frail old body failing him more every day, until finally comes regeneration and a new body. But as it were,it’s no help, and it only give him another list of jumble conclusions that’ll never be complete. Jamie, Victoria and Zoe.

 

The next real thing that’s written, the next thing that doesn't fill him with shame of how little he cared to recall, is Brigadier Lethbridge - Stewart. he writes a lot of him, again and again over the generations, until finally it is a book of it’s own, too - he calls it   _The loyal man,_ because he’s never been anything but loyal, and after some debating he does decide to publish it and gives Alistor a copy in hand, signed and all. His daughter, little Kate, gets one too, because somehow, he knows, that she’ll one day be as important to him as her father is.

 

He never want Alistair Lethbridge- Stewart, _The loyal man_ , to be forgotten by her, and with his book entailing their adventures throughout the years he make sure he doesn’t.

 

_And you live forever_

_In eyes not yet created_

_On tongues that are not born_

 

In the years that come, beside Alistor, there’s more names - his third, fourth, and fifth regeneration seem to blur together and he gather scattered accounts of the people he met, sometimes not even that. Sometimes, all he has is a sketch, depicting their faces or in the worst cases an object that’s supposed to represent them, somehow. Liz, Jo, Sargent John, Captain Mike, Harry, Leela, K-9 ( a robot, in two version), Adric, Tygan, Nyssa, Vislor, Kamelion, Romana, Sarah Jane.

 

Only two stand out during this time, and actually get what they deserve. Sarah Jane, and Romana. Romana was a time lady, and covered a feeling of homesickness he never knew resided in his chest. Sara Jane is love, his love, the love of the world around her, allways love for everyone and everything.

 

Romana give him no more regret than any other companion,  but Sarah Jane, Sarah Jane deserved so, so much better.  

 

_I have written you down_

_Now you will live forever_

 

Mel and Ace are the next ones that stick, and he’s painfully aware someone's been forgotten in the wake of everything that happened, but he can’t and doesn’t want to remember, so he focus on those he do remember. His springy, small and always persistent Mel, so caring she eventually left so that she could care for someone else.

 

Ace,  whose destiny was mapped out before his eyes from the moment that they met,and yet he never could bring himself to tell her until the day that it was all revealed anyway. That day, it was too late, and it was added to an infinite list of regrets.

 

They never get books, not one of them, but they sure are remembered.

 

_Your body lies upon the sheets_

_Of paper and words so sweet_

 

The eight incarnation of him is a holy mess, and not much is even remembered, hundreds of years passing without much resemblance or recognition, all the way from the traumatic beginning to the even more traumatic end. Knowing this, he’s surprised when he finds papers from the time. It’s not much, not even a description of character, just the names _Fitz_ and _Grace_ repeated over and over on one page after another, sometimes fitting in words like _hospital_ , _doctor_ , _musician_ and _guitar_. It’s certainly not much, but when he finds it years later it makes him oddly proud of his old incarnation.

 

_I can't say the words_

_So I wrote you into my verse_

 

Rose, Adame and Jack are next. Adam is, for all his crude and irresponsibly evil behaviour, soon forgotten, but by his tenth regeneration both Rose and Jack got their own books. Terrific tales, of great adventures and great love, and the doctor smile when he sees a kind review of either of them in the paper or on the internet from time to time.

 

 _The flower girl of Bad Wolf Bay_ is the story of love holding strong through time and space, through dimensions even, and tell you not to ever give up on anything you wish for.

 

 _The Captain of time_ is a story of great adventures, of meetings with friends and foes in and out of your time, and of a man who wouldn’t stop flirting with anybody. Ever. The Doctor doesn’t dwell on the fact that he’s probably doing Jack a service with how he portrays him in his book.

 

Rose and Jack was some of the finest companions The Doctor would ever know, and it is that fact, that make him so sad of all that followed the two of them.

 

_Now you'll live through the ages_

_I can feel your pulse in the pages_

  


After Rose and Jack there’s so many faces that doesn’t stick as much as they should. At most, they get half a page, but mostly they just pass in a blur, making him feel like when he lost Susan all over again. Mickey, Donna, Martha, Wilfred, Christine. Astrid, Jackson, Adelaide and Sarah Jane.

 

The last name though, doesn’t pass unnoticed, and instead, it throws him for a loop, because she is back. After all of forty years, so much and yet so little, his girl who deserved more is back at last.

 

After his encounter with her, he dig up all his old notes on the same woman, and he put them together, making them into the book he never made for her.

 

 _The girl who waited_ is the title of the book and only so many years later does it he realise how wrong that name is, but by then it is too late and he has already given Sarah Jane what she deserved, the book about the woman who wouldn’t forget nor be forgotten.

 

_I have written you down_

_Now you will live forever_

_And all the world will read you_

_And you will live forever_

 

In his next life, his eleventh, nearly everyone who cross his path end up being written down as a book, and he feels oddly proud of it. As if he’s for the first time actually giving all his companions what they always deserved but rarely got - a guaranteed not to be forgotten. It’s funny how he oh so fear forgetting, and yet he does, so often and so much.

 

 _The Centurion_ and _The girl who traveled the stars_ , is the first two books he writes for Rory and Amy. Later, he writes them a third book, too, and he calls it _The lovers that never gave up_ , because no matter what, Amy and Rory would never ever abandon each other.

 

Then There’s River Song. There’s _her_ , his wife who died the first time they met, and after their marriage in a time that never was he writes her a book, too. He calls it _The madman’s wife,_ for her is a madman and she is his wife _._ The day after he wrote it, the madman, his, wife comes running into the TARDIS yelling and pressing the book into his face, equally delighted and mortified that he had written her a book. A hole five hundred pages long hardback book with a drawing of his beautiful wife that he once did while she was sleeping on the cover.

 

Next, there’s Vastra and Jenny. They get a book, because they tried so hard to help him. Because at the end of the day, they’re some of the msot dedicated and loyal friends he has. He call the book _The real Sherlock Holmes and her family_ , and doesn’t forget to add Strax on a corner of it. They light up like candles when they read it and it makes him feel like he’s doen something correctly.

 

Last, but not least, there’s Clara. The impossible girl, his soufflé making little angel. And of course, she gets a book, too, because what else? He’s met her and seen her die so many time over that he could not deny her the book she deserved. He wants to call it _The girl with a thousand lives_ but somehow it leads him back to thinking of Romana and Susan and all the other Time Lords and it hurt and he change his mind because he can’t stand when it hurts that much. _The impossible girl_ is a much better title and when he’s written that, he’s content and happy.

 

_In eyes not yet created_

_On tongues that are not born_

_I have written you down_

_Now you will live forever_

 

His Twelfth regeneration starts with confusion and uncertainty. He feels lost and forgotten and is not quite sure what to do with himself, with the new, older body that he has gained, and in an attempt to get to know himself he writes himself down. He write every detail he can remember, quiz Clara on what she likes in him and put it together to try and get an idea of who he is when he’s not sure anymore.

 

Clara ask to read it, and after he lets her, she ask if he’s going to publish it as a book, think maybe others would like to read it. He agrees, and it turns out as _John Smith’s_ eleventh book, _New face and old soul_. Clara is enthusiastic to learn that it’s not his first book, that he’s been writing books about his travels and companions since the sixties, and he indulge her. He’s always been doing it as a way to honour their memory and keep them alive, but Clara make it feel like so much more.

 

Later, so much later, he stand there with a book called the _Impossible Girl_ that he’s written about a woman he can’t remember, and for reasons he doesn’t know he both cry and smile at the words in it.

 

After Clara, the girl he can’t remember, River comes back. She comes back over Christmas and suddenly they are there, on Darillium, settling into a domestic life that’s going to last for twenty-four beautiful, linear years. It’s more than he’s ever dared to hope for, and it makes him feel so happy to see, to feel it in his bones. Because it was there, drumming inside him, not driving him crazy the way linear life had once done but reassuring him that everything was exactly as it should be.

 

Twenty four years, and though it pass quickly he has more than enough time to write a second book for River, appropriately named _The madman’s family_ , the continuation of   _The madman’s wife_. River is not happier about the second book than she was the first, but encourage him to publish it after their twenty four years are gone.

 

 _The madman’s family_ is not the last book he writes, but one of his absolute favourites, and he hope that people can see and feel all the emotions and all the love that he holds for his favourite and family as he give them new life in the pages.

 

He prays for that, for all his pages, and all his books. That they will show the readers his love for those around him, for his adventurous and the people he bring along with him. It’s his thank you that he could never give to anyone.

 


End file.
